The sharing of food, especially homemade or homegrown produce is pretty common here in Italy, but that still doesn’t stop me from getting ridiculously excited when someone turns up with a bottle of grappa, some figs, wild boar, or fresh sheep’s milk ricotta.
We’re chatting to a local guy who we’re hoping will cut down two of our dead pines (one unceremoniously struck by lightening), and he popped down to the house a couple of days ago to review what needed doing. It’s not untypical of people to turn up with goodies in hand, but this was pretty much the first time we’d met Eduardo so it was especially sweet. He lives in San Ginesio – a beautiful hill-top village about 10km from us – and his old dad makes sheep’s cheese for a living. I’m politely waiting for an invite to go and watch him at work, but in the meantime I was more than happy with a huge tube – about 500g – of fresh ricotta.
So, what to make? I asked my brilliant foodie connections on Instagram to suggest some dishes and someone came up trumps with ricotta gnocchi – or ndundari as is their official name. A recipe that’s so simple it could be classed as fast food, and so tasty people will be fooled you’ve spent hour upon hour in the kitchen. It’s similar to the classic potato gnocchi, but more dense, without being heavy. In fact they hold their shape so well you can also fry them – perhaps with some butter and sage – as a side dish to some grilled meat.
Do your best to source some good ricotta from an Italian deli for this recipe as this dish is all about the quality of the ingredients.
Feeds 4 for a starter or 2-3 hungry people for a main.
Ingredients
200g of flour – preferably tipo 00
220g of fresh ricotta
3 egg yolks
20g of parmesan – grated
Freshly grated nutmeg
Salt & pepper to taste
Put a large pan of salted water on to boil.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, ricotta, egg yolks, parmesan, nutmeg, s&p (so, that’s all the ingredients listed above). Work it with your hand in the bowl until it starts to come together. It may feel rather dry initially, but once you’ve worked the egg yolks and ricotta into the flour, it’ll start to make a nice, silky dough.
Continue working it on a floured surface for about 5 mins or so, then roughly divide it into 4 portions – this is just so it’s easier to manage.
Using your hands, roll the dough into thin(ish) sausages. You can have them as thick or thin as you like, but too thick will make large gnocchi which may be a bit much, and too thin might mean they don’t hold together as well. With an ordinary butter knife, cut the ‘sausage’ at right angles into (roughly) 2cm long shapes. You can then leave them as they are, like small pillows, or press the back of a small fork into one side. The latter creates little gullies for the sauce to get caught in, so I like this method.
Repeat with the other 3/4 of the dough and then pop them in the boiling water. I wait for them to bob to the surface and then leave it another 2 minutes or so before scooping them out with a slotted spoon and popping them into whatever sauce I’ve made as an accompaniment (in this case a very simple tomato and basil sauce with garlic).
These also freeze really well. Make them, pop them on a flat tray in the freezer until they’ve gone hard, and then transfer them to a freezer bag. Cook from frozen, as mentioned above.
Delicious.